Herdsmen As Killers

In my childhood days, the herdsmen were so much fun to have around. We kids would mushroom around them, holding their caftans, their staffs, and sometimes, taunt their cattle. The herdsmen would laugh at our curiosity and, in their spare time, engage us in the game of "tente" - a local musical Yoruba game that used the hands and the feet. We had a couple of singsongs then, like: "Maalu rooro" meaning, "A cattle is dangerous" and whenever one cattle escaped from the fold and made its way dangerously to the market, we would scream in unison, "O ti ja ooooo", meaning,

"The stubborn cattle has escaped from the fold". I learned my first smattering Hausa language from the herdsmen. Then, they carried staffs to direct and control the herds and daggers to ward off cattle thieves, especially at night. Then, they wore loads of smiles. They greeted cheerfully in bastardized Yoruba language - a gesture that attracted both laughter and admiration from the host community.

More than five decades after, the herdsmen unleashed a reign of terror on Aguata and Nimbe. They killed, maimed and raped, leaving behind tons of destruction, dislocated families and shattered dreams. The new herdsmen are equipped with AK47, sullen faces of religious and ethnic fanaticism and deep-seated hatred for their host communities. What changed? We lost our humanity on the altar of ethnicity and religion. Politicians have never stopped to exploit our differences to conquer and win. And then comes a National Cattle Gazing Bill that does not recognize the independence and cultural values of the federating states; a bill that would only put undue pressure on the tiny little thread that still binds us together. We lost our peace to governmental inaction (or, is it complicity, as some are alleging?) I am still waiting for the criminal herdsmen to be prosecuted. And to the rest of us reading more meaning than it meets on this issue, I am sorry to say that we are strengthening our division and empowering the political class to continue to divide and rule us.

Give me back the herdsmen of the 60s. The newly created herdsmen are criminals and religious and ethnic bigots. They should be in jail and not in our communities. By Abiodun Fijabi